Harry Potter - 6 - The Half-Blood prince by J.K. Rowling

Author:J.K. Rowling [J.K. Rowling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, England, People & Places, Europe, Magic, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary place), Wizards, School & Education
ISBN: 9780747584667
Publisher: London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006, c2005.
Published: 2006-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Chapter 17: A Sluggish Memory

Late in the af­ter­noon, a few days af­ter New Year, Har­ry, Ron, and Gin­ny lined up be­side the kitchen fire to re­turn to Hog­warts. The Min­istry had ar­ranged this one­off con­nec­tion to the Floo Net­work to re­turn stu­dents quick­ly and safe­ly to the school. On­ly Mrs. Weasley was there to say good­bye, as Mr. Weasley, Fred, George, Bill, and Fleur were all at work. Mrs. Weasley dis­solved in­to tears at the mo­ment of part­ing. Ad­mit­ted­ly, it took very lit­tle to set her off late­ly; she had been cry­ing on and off ev­er since Per­cy had stormed from the house on Christ­mas Day with his glass­es splat­tered with mashed parsnip (for which Fred, George, and Gin­ny all claimed cred­it).

“Don’t cry, Mum,” said Gin­ny, pat­ting her on the back as Mrs. Weasley sobbed in­to her shoul­der. “It’s okay. …”

“Yeah, don’t wor­ry about us,” said Ron, per­mit­ting his moth­er to plant a very wet kiss on his cheek, “or about Per­cy. He’s such a prat, it’s not re­al­ly a loss, is it?”

Mrs. Weasley sobbed hard­er than ev­er as she en­fold­ed Har­ry in her arms.

“Promise me you’ll look af­ter your­self.. .. Stay out of trou­ble. …”

“I al­ways do, Mrs. Weasley,” said Har­ry. “I like a qui­et life, you know me.”

She gave a wa­tery chuck­le and stood back. “Be good, then, all of you. …”

Har­ry stepped in­to the emer­ald fire and shout­ed “Hog­warts!” He had one last fleet­ing view of the Weasleys’ kitchen and Mrs. Weasley’s tear­ful face be­fore the flames en­gulfed him; spin­ning very fast, he caught blurred glimpses of oth­er Wiz­ard­ing rooms, which were whipped out of sight be­fore he could get a prop­er look; then he was slow­ing down, fi­nal­ly stop­ping square­ly in the fire­place in Pro­fes­sor McG­ona­gall’s of­fice. She bare­ly glanced up from her work as he clam­bered out over the grate.

“Evening, Pot­ter. Try not to get too much ash on the car­pet.”

“No, Pro­fes­sor.”

Har­ry straight­ened his glass­es and flat­tened his hair as Ron came spin­ning in­to view. When Gin­ny had ar­rived, all three of them trooped out of McG­ona­gall’s of­fice and off to­ward Gryffind­or Tow­er. Har­ry glanced out of the cor­ri­dor win­dows as they passed; the sun was al­ready sink­ing over grounds car­pet­ed in deep­er snow than had lain over the Bur­row gar­den. In the dis­tance, he could see Ha­grid feed­ing Buck­beak in front of his cab­in.

“Baubles,” said Ron con­fi­dent­ly, when they reached the Fat La­dy, who was look­ing rather paler than usu­al and winced at his loud voice.

“No,” she said.

“What d’you mean, ‘no’ ?

“There is a new pass­word,” she said. “And please don’t shout.”

“But we’ve been away, how’re we sup­posed to — ?”

“Har­ry! Gin­ny!”

Hermione was hur­ry­ing to­ward them, very pink­faced and wear­ing a cloak, hat, and gloves.

“I got back a cou­ple of hours ago, I’ve just been down to vis­it Ha­grid and Buck — I mean With­er­wings,” she said breath­less­ly. “Did you have a good Christ­mas?”

“Yeah,” said Ron at once, “pret­ty event­ful, Ru­fus Scrim —” ] “I’ve got some­thing for you, Har­ry,” said Hermione, nei­ther look­ing at Ron nor giv­ing any sign that she had heard him.

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